Why do Border Police arbitratily hold up innocent children, infants and parents at a checkpoint? The occupation assures that rewards are in place for this and many other repressive actions.
Graffiti on a low cement wall near a checkpoint our team monitors daily reads 'Free Israel'. It seems intended to rebuff the 'Free Palestine' that appears on many walls in the old city.
Lord, let your love fill the hearts of Palestinian pupils, teachers and other peacemakers who endure suffering. Strengthen their character, feed their hope and lead them in your beautiful, redeeming, nonviolent ways.
On May 12, we arrived at Al Fakheit School where we were met by “Al Jazeera” journalists filming a documentary about the difficulty that children face in getting to school in Occupied Palestine. They told us about one school near East Jerusalem where children have to pass through a sewer pipe to reach their school. As we were describing similar difficulties faced by children in the South Hebron Hills, and the dangers of living in a live firing zone, the headmaster approached us looking crestfallen.
There we were, sitting around a table under bright green grape leaves
and infant grape clusters that protected us from the hot sun. Unusually,
the women outnumbered the men. However, even more unusual was that the first question
came from a woman to me. “I am asking you because you are a woman,” she said.
“Violence against women happens all over the world. How do you think that we
can change that?”
Ask for God's grace that the church may undo colonial
oppression by opposing resource extraction at the expense of First Nations, and
by respecting Indian life, lands and waters.
Pray for new Christian Peacemaker Teams delegates to First Nations
territories in Canada.
Mainstream media have finally begun to
cover drone warfare as a feature of U.S. policy, due in part to Senator Rand
Paul’s historic filibuster during the confirmation of CIA director John Brennan
in March 2013. The Upstate New York
Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, however, has organized
protests against Hancock National Air Guard Base near Syracuse, to raise
awareness about Reaper drones,
over the last three years.
Indigenous rights network Defenders of the Land entered into an alliance with Idle No More, anticipating a "Spring of Solidarity" and a "Summer of Sovereignty". Their statement includes a new call for nonviolent direct action to resist the unfettered, unconsented resource extraction affecting both indigenous and settler land users, and urban campaigns to educate, rally, and mobilize support.
